A DEBATE IS NOW AFOOT in Congress on whether to allow more "high- tech" immigrants into the United States. High-tech companies urge raising the number of "H-1B" visas from 115,000 to 200,000 per year, and special interests, ideology and Beltway politics have turned the matter into a political football.

The high-tech labor "problem" is one most countries would love to have. The booming American economy has produced so much growth and innovation that there are simply not enough applicants to fill all the new, high-paying high-tech jobs.

Estimates put the number of unfilled positions at 300,000, despite the near-doubling last year of the number of H-1Bs. The 115,000 high-tech workers allowed into the country is clearly not enough. The proposed new limit of 200,000 is destined to be insufficient as well. However, some members of Congress see the desperation of the high-tech industry as an opportunity to exploit. They believe that high-tech companies would take advantage of the increase in H-1Bs to import smart but cheap labor and thus undercut the local workforce.

The fact is that bringing in foreign skilled workers to keep the economy running is not a narrow, special interest, and there are ways to import highly skilled workers that will not undercut American workers. It would be a controversial move, but the first step toward a comprehensive high-tech immigration policy is to end the numerical limit on high-tech visas.

People dead-set against an increase in high-tech visas recruit a host of arguments. One old chestnut is that taking the "best and the brightest" from overseas produces a "brain drain" deleterious to struggling countries and regions. This supposition needs to be reassessed. The engineers and scientists from the developing world who come to America are those who possess the very highest skills and can command the very highest salaries. Nascent high-tech industries seldom can use such human capital to maximum advantage. Forcing people who have the talent and education to earn $100,000 a year to stay in a place where local industry has developed only to the point where they can earn $20,000 is bad economics. It is also unfair.

Our universities, research and development labs, manufacturing plants and our overall economy lead the world. Many of the best and brightest need no less than this to attain their maximum potential. Keeping them out is holding them back. Letting them in need not hurt American high-tech workers. The huge shortage in suitable applicants for high-tech jobs in America shows this. The problem is not excess labor supply; it is excess demand. Far from taking jobs from Americans, high-tech immigrants create new economic opportunity. They pay high taxes, thus contributing to local, state and federal government surpluses. They consume goods and services, thus opening jobs for the less skilled. They foster the growth of the companies and industries that employ them, thus creating in turn even more high-tech, medium-tech and non-tech jobs -- not to mention fattening Americans' stock portfolios.

High-tech immigrants are said to undercut their American counterparts. Foreign high-tech workers are coming to the Unit ed States with tremendous expectations . . . high base salaries, generous 401(k) matching plans and stock options. It is not for depressed-wage jobs that high-tech immigrants are leaving the familiarity and guarantees of their social welfare state homelands. But the concern that an end to H-1B visa limits would lead to abuse is real enough. The answer is to make the granting of high-tech visas conditional. Any company seeking high-tech workers must be barred from bringing in a foreign "replacement" just to undercut a local wage.

Increasing the fee on high-tech visas may also help ensure that companies looking overseas are truly in need of filling high- level spots. And fees on new high-tech arrivals can be used to answer another complaint by opponents of high-tech immigration. If the 300,000 shortfall in high- tech workers were made up this year by immigrants, a fee of $2,000 per entrant would generate $600 million. That would be seed money for an initiative to improve domestic high-tech education. America is a beacon because of our democracy and rule of law. Limits on high- tech labor ignore that our greatest strength is the attraction we exert on human beings seeking to better themselves. Congress should end the limits on high-tech immigrants.